I like to think of myself as a nice person. A positive, energetic, and an all-around happy person. As much as I don’t like confrontation, sometimes I feel the passion inside me roaring out if I have a cause. And frankly, I do…I’ll get to that.

This is my first “rant” / negative blog, so I hope you feel my pain and passion for what I’m about to share. I’m absolutely in love with Montreal, so I am utterly shocked that this is something I experienced within my first month here. And I know BKM readers will help support the cause of taking down the illusion of absolute power within the workplace, let alone the restaurant industry which is already a controversial topic.

This rant is about racist individuals running a restaurant for corporate millionaires and going through with illegal actions without realizing the consequences they will face…. firing People of Colour without reason and after probation, treating female employees with less respect than their male counterparts. And all around disrespect to anyone who does not fit into the impossible standards held by certain people in power, who in this case are (white, francophone, males).

I will not name anyone nor will I give away which restaurant….except the fact that it’s near the Bell Centre and they like to play BIG sports games.

In the past week, the GM has fired three non-white employees from our already Majority white establishment. Conveniently, three white francophones started the next day. The first POC that he fired without cause was told he didn’t have the right “look”. The second one was told to be more like two white servers yet could come up with a trait or skill that they had and she didn’t, the third was told her service was subpar yet couldn’t provide one example, or customer complaint or incident to which he was referring to. I will say there is something extremely suspicious about this. These incidences happened within two days and the new “white” servers started immediately after. The worst part is that this was all AFTER probation period.

The corporate structure here in Quebec allows them to rely on “policies” and systematic racism to allow discrimination and ultimately, racism.

This discrimination at work is never talked about among staff for fear of getting fired. I mean its only been a year that it became illegal for restaurants to require women to wear heels yet there is a big poster with photos of heels when describing mandatory uniforms outside the dressing room. As if they didn’t think we knew the law… ridiculous.

I am writing this because as a person of colour and a female, I was told to watch out because I was going to be fired next. I emailed someone in response to his unfair actions and got NO response.

Therefore, I chose to share my thoughts with the real change makers, the individuals who can like share and put this out there…because who would want to eat at a restaurant that is fueled by unhappy employees. I don’t even want to be with the overworked, underpaid kitchen staff, who work their asses off to make some awesome food but are told that they aren’t paid for the extra hours they worked.

It’s 2018 and in Quebec we are sick of this pure laine male domination and we are sick of putting our heads down when someone in a position of Authority behaves this way. Honestly, in a twisted yet cheesy way, He is the Donald to our America. This is Discrimination and we will fight against it.

DO NOT SUPPORT hate and bigotry.

The power of fire inside a passionate people will be the change. Thank you for reading, and let’s share this to protect each other from other cases like this one!

Please don’t take this particular place you are talking about (everyone who knows the surroundings of the Bell Centre figured it out) as a significant example of the whole Quebec corporate culture. Find a decent job in a decent place and you’ll get a whole different perspective, as would anyone in a similar situation in Toronto, New York etc …

It’s kind of silly to come to Quebec expecting to be able to work exclusively in English Dani. That being said, there is a lot of pure laine racism alive and well still but thankfully younger (less bigoted) generations are taking over 🙂